luckily for us, we are not that far off.. I do see them dropping out of the picture, and have thought that it was going to come down to them for some time now.
Saying that I DO believe we will make the playoffs, after that... I do not have much hope unless we get our act together.

Cursed like the Clippers? If a nucleus of Stephan Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee, Harrison Barnes is "cursed" then I dont know what blessed is. And are you saying that you prefer MDA over Mark Jackson as a coach?

I agree with you. I realized it once I started looking at their schedule a few days ago. They'll be in 7th seed by the weekend and have an extremely tough schedule the rest of the way.

They've lost their last 5, are losing right now to the Jazz, play tomorrow against PHX, then its the Spurs followed by a really tough 5 game road trip. If they don't beat PHX tomorrow they truly could find themselves losing 13 straight as they're playing with zero confidence. Their last 4 games of the year are home against OKC, at Lakers, home against Spurs, and at Blazers.

There's no chance GSW finishes better than the 8 seed. That is the one team I know we will pass if we play good basketball from here on.

Cursed like the Clippers? If a nucleus of Stephan Curry, Klay Thompson, David Lee, Harrison Barnes is "cursed" then I dont know what blessed is. And are you saying that you prefer MDA over Mark Jackson as a coach?

GSW will make the playoffs. They have been going through a bad strech of shooting and of nights, once their jumpers start falling, they're unstoppable. We have no chance at surpassing the Warriors, so let's pray the inconsistent Rockets keep falling and we start winning for once.

I suspect that there are alot of Lakers fans that would swap Mark Jackson for MDA in a second, but not too many Warriors fans that would. I dont think much of Jackson as a person but he knows the game, knows how to coach to the talent he has and his players love him. I will assume that MDA knows the game, but he has no clue how to coach some of the talent he has (a player has to fit "his" system, period) and he has his fair number of current and ex-players who have nothing good to say about him.

If you have been watching those teams play you would know Utah has been hot and the Warriors have been ice cold. They are ahead of both Utah and Houston, but they are going the wrong way. Golden State just lost 6 straight, Utah is 7-3 in their last 10. It makes sense to believe that the Lakers could end up passing the Warriors instead of Houston or Utah.

What the Lakers need to do though is just win games. It doesn't matter who falls, if we don't win then what those teams does is irrelevant.

It's all about stretches. Houston and Golden State are about to go through rough schedules in the season. Lakers get a bit of an easier spell. So we'll see. Just going 5-1 in our next 6 could change the dynamic.